Contact BillaCakes

Please feel free to email me with any questions, comments, or requests. I love a challenge and welcome all your feedback!

billacakes (at) gmail (dot) com

What's Cooking At Billa Cakes?

Billa Cakes is the brain child of one hot mama: Me! It's named for my daughter Sybilla, who is my inspiration and motivation. I love baking and as an artist, it gives me an outlet for my creativity as well as an opportunity to help create memories for a lifetime.

Currently this is a hobby to gain experience, but someday I plan on making it into a full time gig! My training includes some classes from my local baking supply shops, the Food Network and the internet. I am a full time student in the School of Hard Knocks.

My hope with this site is to showcase my work as I develop my business and to share my learning experiences with others so they can learn too. Thanks for following along!

Thursday, December 16, 2010

One of my favorite things about the yuletide season is the baking. Every year, I bake a ton of cookies and cakes and other sweet goodies to give as gifts or keep for ourselves. My most favorite treat from my childhood are Holly Wreaths (and apparently I'm not the only one...I just saw them featured on Cakespy in their original corn flakey glory as I was putting this post together. Talk about the universe aligning, eh?).

Every year, my mom would make them and every year, my brothers and I would stuff ourselves silly on them. As we got older, my mom would let us help her make them until eventually, I was delegated with the task (she had more important things to do, like make my great-grandmother's recipe for pralines!). Her version uses corn flakes because they look more like holly leaves. A lot of people are turned off by that sadly, so I switched to rice krispies instead. I hope you'll enjoy making these as well and that they too, might become a fun tradition in your family during the holidays.

1. Prep the work surface by laying down pieces of parchment paper. DO NOT use wax paper or foil!

2. Melt the stick of butter over low heat in a large non-stick saucepan. Add in the marshmallows and stir it gently with a spatula until the marshmallows are almost completely melted. Add in the green food coloring.

3. Add the rice krispies a little bit at a time, coating each bit thoroughly before adding more. You may or may not end up using all six cups. Once the krispies are coated, remove from heat.

4. Grease your hands with some butter and begin to shape wreaths out of the mixture, laying them on the parchment to finish setting. Gently push in red hots or m&m's to make holly berries.

Billa helps me put on the cinnamon imperials holly berries

Some food for thought...

I recommend not using wax paper or foil for a reason. Unfortunately, their anti-sticking properties are not nearly as effective against hot, melted marshmallows like parchment paper! Also, using a non-stick pan makes for super easy cooking and clean up. If you don't have one, don't fret, just be prepared for a really sticky mixture!

If you don't feel like shaping the mixture by hand, you could always spread it out on a cookie sheet and then use biscuit cutters to cut wreath-like shapes. Better yet, you could cut trees and then ice them like you would a cookie!

Should you choose to use the traditional corn flakes, you'll need to make sure to cut back on the amount you use. My mom's recipe says 6 cups, but I say drop it to 4 cups and go from there!

Also, this kinda goes without saying, but remove all jewelry from your fingers before getting going on these...it's messy!